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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27592237">til i find that old love (or that old love comes to find me)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend'>mayfriend</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bruce Wayne is Bad at Communicating, Bruce Wayne is Bad at Feelings, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Damian Wayne’s Parent, Dick Grayson is Nightwing, Gen, Hurt Damian Wayne, Protective Dick Grayson, non-graphic injury</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 23:40:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,259</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27592237</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayfriend/pseuds/mayfriend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>As soon as Dick hears the <i>crack</i>, he knows Damian’s broken something. The boy – stubborn, stupid boy, Dick thinks, fond – tries to walk on what Dick guesses is a broken ankle, apparently testing out the severity of the injury, his face twisted in obvious pain. It’s not until a grunt of low agony escapes him that he resentfully stops, and leans against the alley wall whilst trying to look like he's doing anything but.</p><p>Dick resists the urge to bury his face in his hands as he catches sight of the defiant set of Damian’s mouth and the tense slope of his shoulders. This… is going to be difficult.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson &amp; Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>374</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson Fic Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>til i find that old love (or that old love comes to find me)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/gifts">FleetSparrow</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Prompt: </b>Any pairing. Mission fic where Dick is the leader, but also a good supporter to his teammate.</p><p>Full disclosure, I bent this a tiny bit so that the mission was not so much a strict objective as it was 'getting back home'. I really hope you like it, FleetSparrow!</p><p> </p><p>Title is from '<a href="https://genius.com/Passenger-keep-on-walking-lyrics">Keep on Walking</a>' by Passenger.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As soon as Dick hears the <em>crack, </em>he knows Damian’s broken something. The boy – stubborn, stupid boy, Dick thinks, fond – tries to walk on what Dick guesses is a broken ankle, apparently testing out the severity of the injury, his face twisted in obvious pain. It’s not until a grunt of low agony escapes him that he resentfully stops, and leans against the alley wall whilst trying to look like he's doing anything but.</p><p>Dick resists the urge to bury his face in his hands as he catches sight of the defiant set of Damian’s mouth and the tense slope of his shoulders. This… is going to be difficult. </p><p>“Back to the cave,” he says, using his Batman voice. He’s a little out of practice – he hasn’t had a proud young partner to corral into something resembling caution for too long, and Damian doesn’t move a muscle, instead puffing up like an offended bird. </p><p>“I’m fine,” Damian insists. </p><p>Sometimes, Dick wishes Damian were a little less his father’s son.</p><p>“Robin, you can’t <em>walk,</em>” Dick stresses. </p><p>
  <em>“Yes. I. Can.”</em>
</p><p>Dick takes a deep, calming breath, and reaches for his comm. “B, there’s been–”</p><p>And then the next thing he knows he’s talking to his empty palm, and Damian’s on the ground, yelping and clutching at his totally-fine-foot, and whatever Bruce’s response was is lost with the communicator that’s in pieces on the ground. </p><p>“Robin!” he exclaims, barely stopping himself from using Damian’s real name he's so surprised by the boy’s violent action. “What the <em>hell </em>is wrong with you?” </p><p>Damian won’t look at him, and Dick realises after a moment that he can’t speak without sobbing by the heavy, repetitive way he’s gulping. “Let me see,” he says, softer, and crouches down to examine the limb in question. After a beat, Damian releases his right foot with a wince, and Dick slides his boot off slowly and carefully, trying not to increase the damage further as he does. </p><p>Damian whimpers, just once, when Dick lets his fingers ghost over his metatarsals – four and five are cracked, at the very least, and he’d bet money that Damian’s done something to the muscle as well when he was lunging for Dick’s comm. Examination done, Dick looks up at Damian’s face; his hood’s fallen down, and in the yellow-tinted streetlight, the clotting blood on his bottom lip from where he’s gnawed on it looks black. </p><p>“Why didn’t you want me to tell Batman you’re hurt?” Dick asks his brother, who won’t meet his gaze, even behind a mask. “Is there something going on I don’t know about?”</p><p>“No,” Damian says mulishly, in that way of his that means <em>yes. </em></p><p>“<em>Robin</em>,” Dick says the codename the way Bruce used to, when he was the one in green and red and gold. </p><p>Damian mutters something low, that Dick’s ears completely fail to catch. The boy’s face is still tight with pain, but Dick waits expectantly, without any other real option considering there’s no good outcome if he tackles an injured teenager, especially this one. “–not supposed to be out,” Damian says, finally, huffily, and all the pieces fall into place.</p><p>“B didn’t send you to take his place on the stakeout,” Dick states, a beat after his brain catches up, internally kicking himself for not putting it together sooner. He should have figured out something was up as soon as Damian told him that he’d accidently left his comm behind. It was Damian. He didn’t forget things.</p><p>“He heard the Riddler was looking to expand his crew for something big,” he admits, “and wanted to stop whatever he’s planning before it starts. Apparently, that meant he had to leave me behind. He told me to tell you that he couldn’t make it to the stakeout, and to watch the cameras back at the cave, but–”</p><p>“–you decided to come on the stakeout instead,” Dick finishes.</p><p>“He <em>benched </em>me,” Damian snaps, his outrage clear in his every word. “Like he thinks I’m just some snot-nosed <em>child </em>that can’t do anything by myself<em>. </em>And he didn’t even care enough to tell me to my face, he had <em>Pennyworth </em>do it–”</p><p>Dick remembers the few times he’d tried to bench Damian, and winces. Yeah, he can understand why Bruce had tried to pass the job off onto Alfred, and skip the complaining, bargaining and anger altogether. That doesn’t mean Bruce shouldn’t know better by now; Damian is <em>his </em>son, after all, and there’s a reason why Robin exists, beyond Dick’s own childhood grief and rage. </p><p>If Dick hadn’t been there, those first few years on the job together, he thinks Bruce would’ve gotten himself killed a dozen times over because he simply never knew when to stop. He needed to be pulled back, away, by Dick, by his <em>kid, </em>who needed him more than Gotham needed a saviour. That was why Dick stayed; because although he loved being Robin, he would have stopped after Zucco if he hadn’t known in his bones that Bruce needed him. Bruce needed someone to care about, because Bruce simply didn’t care enough about himself.</p><p>Damian doesn’t have those roots, that responsibility. He’s not a Robin the way Dick was, the way Jason was, the way Tim was; not even the way Steph was. Bruce should have known better. He should have at the very least given Damian a <em>reason </em>why he couldn’t go with him besides the usual spiel of it being too dangerous, a yarn that he’d been pulling out for nearly twenty years now, except he hadn’t even bothered with <em>that</em>.</p><p>Dick’s partnered with both of them, as Batman and Robin, and he knows Damian needs what Bruce needed all those years ago. Someone to hold him back. Someone to tell him no. And Bruce didn’t do that, maybe even can’t, but knowing Bruce as he does, Dick doubts he ever considered that his fifth Robin, his <em>son</em>, might need something different than those who came before him.  </p><p>He can’t even say he’s really surprised at Damian’s subterfuge, now he knows what prompted it, but he’s always known Damian better than Bruce does. Damian was Dick’s Robin, was Dick’s Robin <em>first,</em> and Dick had been so happy to get to work with him again that he’d been stupid and thought Bruce had finally gotten over himself and let them partner up for this one night out of—kindness? Or guilt, perhaps, for the childish way he’d reacted to Dick and Damian’s new closeness when he came back from the past. Like a kid who wasn’t playing with a toy but still didn’t want anyone else to touch it either.</p><p>The truth was, Dick hadn’t analysed Bruce’s reasons much. He hadn’t given any of it enough thought, because he’d just been so glad to be out with Dami again. </p><p>“Okay,” Dick says, cutting off Damian mid-rant, “okay.”</p><p>Damian stares at him with wide eyes. “You’re not– angry?”</p><p>Dick could be. He’s good at getting angry. But the only person he’s angry at is Bruce, for pushing his twelve-year-old son aside again, when Dick had been right <em>there, </em>ready and waiting to take him, and has been all along. He knows that being around Damian is... difficult, for Bruce, but Dick has long stopped thinking that was because of anything Damian himself has done. The truth is, Damian could be everything Bruce could ever want, and Bruce would still find something lacking. The truth is, Damian is his father’s son and Bruce <em>hates </em>that. He isn’t obvious about it, but Dick has seen the way he looks at Damian sometimes, like he’s seeing someone else entirely.</p><p>Maybe it’s because he reminds him of Talia, of Ra’s, but Dick thinks it might just be because Damian reminds him of himself.</p><p>He’ll never tell Damian this. Never. Dick is a firm believer that there are some things you should remain ignorant about in this world, and the fact that your father finds you hard to love is one of them. </p><p>“I’ve still got to get you back to the cave,” Dick says, and Damian lets out a wordless growl of disagreement. Dick tries not to take that as confirmation that since he went back to Bludhaven full-time that the boy has been spending the majority of his time with Titus. “No arguing,” Dick says, pre-empting Damian’s complaints, “we <em>are </em>going back, and that’s final.”</p><p>“But then he’ll <em>know,</em>” Damian protests.</p><p>“Let me deal with B,” Dick says firmly. “Now, can you walk at all?” And then, when Damian opens his mouth a little too quickly- “<em>Without</em> hurting yourself further?”</p><p>“...My left leg’s fine,” Robin finally says. “I can put weight on it.”</p><p>“Okay,” Dick breathed, walking to Damian’s right and crouching so that Damian’s right arm can curl around his shoulders for support. The shambolic pace they set with Damian essentially hopping along is painfully slow, and Damian makes it about five paces before pulling away. </p><p>“This is <em>ridiculous</em>,” the boy snaps. </p><p>It is, Dick can admit, if only to himself, a little ridiculous. However, the least ridiculous option – calling Bruce and getting him to come pick them up in the Batmobile – was crushed into little pieces by Damian’s poor choices and the laws of gravity. Dick closes his eyes and thinks, resisting the urge to knead his temples. They’re on the wrong side of Gotham, and although Bruce is undoubtedly in a complete panic after Dick got cut off, he’s also highly unlikely to come looking for them until after he’s satisfied the Riddler is dealt with – the mission comes first for him, it always has. </p><p>It used to come first for Dick, too. Before he learned there are some things even more important than Gotham.</p><p>So. He has no way of communicating with the rest of the family, an injured tagalong, and little less than sixteen miles between them and the cave. He hasn’t got any money to call a cab, and anywhere reputable on this side of the city has been shut for hours. </p><p>“Right,” he says to no one, internally mapping the quickest route across Gotham that won’t land them in the middle of a turf war, “that’s great.”</p><p>“Grayson,” Damian says, having regained control over his breathing, “how far are we from the penthouse?”</p><p>Mentally, Dick orients himself. “Four miles or so?” He guesses—it’s significantly closer than the manor, he’ll admit, although it’ll be risky to enter a Wayne Industries building as Nightwing. Still, he can hack the security cameras after, and he’s pretty sure he can get in without being seen by the night doorman. “Yeah, four miles. We can do four miles.”</p><p>“Tt. No, <em>we </em>can’t,” Damian says, “but <em>you </em>can. You’ll move faster on the rooftops, and once you’re there, you can get a car and pick me up–”</p><p>“Absolutely not,” Dick says flatly. </p><p>Damian’s mouth sets itself into a thin, white line. “It’s the only sensible–”</p><p>“There is no way in <em>hell</em>,” Dick says, and he swears he can feel his blood pressure rising. “You’re injured, you don’t have a comm, it’s the middle of the night in <em>November</em> and– it’s not happening.”</p><p>“Nightwing, I can’t walk four metres, let alone four miles, I’ll slow you down immeasurably and time is–”</p><p>“Robin, you’re <em>twelve.</em>” Dick’s surprised by how hard he’s breathing, the rage and panic rising in him at the thought of Damian alone, injured and shivering and abandoned in one of the worst neighbourhoods in Gotham City. “This is not on the table. It never has been, it never will be. Do you understand?” When Damian doesn’t meet his eyes, Dick repeats himself, lower. “Do. You. Understand?”</p><p>“It’s illogical to not even consider–”</p><p>“<em>No,</em>” Dick snaps. </p><p>Finally, Damian nods shallowly, but his arms are still crossed tightly across his chest and he won’t meet Dick’s gaze. Dick closes his eyes, and tries to calm down, but the image of Damian, alone in the alley, won’t leave him. (He doesn’t think about the grave. He <em>doesn’t.</em>) The gut-clenching terror he feels isn’t new, but it’s still powerful, still enough to make his mouth go dry and his hands shake.</p><p>(He left Damian once. Never again.)</p><p>“Okay, new plan,” he says, moving to Damian’s good side before crouching down on his heels. “Put your arms around my neck.”</p><p>Damian doesn’t uncross his arms. His whole face is screwed up in disapproval. “I will not be carried around like a <em>child–”</em></p><p>“<em>Robin,” </em>Dick says, and after a moment, he feels Damian place a hand on his shoulder to balance as he hobbles closer, before following Dick’s instruction. </p><p>“This is undignified,” Damian mutters grumpily, but gives no further critique as Dick helps guide Damian’s good leg to his side and stands up. The boy stiffens a little as his bad foot is jostled whilst Dick adjusts his grip on Damian’s thighs, but after a moment the injured limb hangs loose and unstressed. </p><p>“It’s better than a three-legged race across Gotham.”</p><p>“Barely,” Damian snarks, but the effect is ruined by his tucking his chin over Dick’s shoulder. </p><p>“Does it hurt at all?” Dick double-checks, and Damian replies in the negative. “Okay, here we go.”</p><p>Dick’s been patrolling Gotham since he was nine years old; he thinks he knows the streets as well as Bruce, and he knows the rooftops even better. Ideally, he’d be grappling between buildings, cutting his journey time in half, but with Damian’s added weight and how difficult it would be to get up high enough without injuring his brother’s bad leg, he’s staying on the ground. </p><p>He finds himself thankful that the Robin uniform has changed so much since he wore it; with the black cape, muted colours and dark trousers Damian blends into the shadows in a way Dick never had at his age, and the only part of the Nightwing suit that’s visible in darkness is the blue vee across his chest. In this part of town, only half the streetlights work at any one time – Dick walks cautiously, trying to stay away from the dim yellow circles whilst using their light to see. </p><p>“Grayson, you need to speed up,” Damian hisses in his ear. </p><p>“If I trip then we’ll both end up on the ground–”</p><p>“Someone’s <em>following </em>us.”</p><p>Dick doesn’t stiffen, but it’s a near thing. As casually as he can manage, he turns his head to the side; Damian’s right. There’s an almost invisible shape gaining on them; Dick swallows and curls his hands into fists as he keeps walking. </p><p>“Get my escrima,” he murmurs, “slowly.”</p><p>Damian leans back to do just that, and Dick feels the weight of the sticks leave his back holster, and he senses Damian moving his hand forward as if to give them to him. “No,” he breathes, “hold onto them. I need to be able to run; you know how to use them well enough if he gets too close.”</p><p>Well enough is a poor way to put it, really. Damian had mastered practically every weapon available whilst in the League, and although the boy would always be a swordsman first, Dick knew that his brother was dangerous no matter what weapons he had at his disposal; hell, Damian was dangerous even without any weapon at all. </p><p>But escrima was Dick’s preferred style, and escrima was one of the few disciplines that he was skilled enough in to help Damian relearn in that year without Bruce; before, every move Damian knew was meant to kill, or maim. Damian wasn’t going to kill anyone on instinct anymore, not with Dick’s weapons. So, yeah. Well enough. </p><p>Finally, finally, they came out onto the closest thing to a main road there was in this district, better lit and blissfully wide – Dick made a sharp left, and as soon as he was sure he and Damian weren’t visible anymore behind the corner of the building, broke into a run. </p><p>The odds that the bulky shape is a legitimate danger to them is relatively low; one man isn’t much of a challenge for him anymore, unless that one man is the likes of Bruce or Deathstroke. But Dick’s carrying precious cargo, and any unnecessary risk is an unacceptable one. </p><p>On his back, Damian’s breathing has gone harsh and deliberate, an unfortunate side effect of Dick’s sprint – the boy has to hang on tighter to stay on, and his body is rising and falling at the same time as Dick’s legs pump; hardly comfortable even without a broken bone. Dick doesn’t stop running though; not until he reaches the outskirts of the next district over, and can see small groups of civilians, numbering in twos and threes, dressed in warm coats and fluffy scarves, travelling to and from bars and clubs. </p><p>“You okay?” Dick pants, fatigued more than usual by the added weight on his back, and the anxiety that had stiffened in his muscles. </p><p>Damian grunts in the affirmative lowly, but doesn’t speak. Dick takes that as a <em>no. </em></p><p>“Almost there,” he says, for lack of anything else to say, “almost there, promise.”</p><p>Carefully, Dick moves along roads that are almost parallel to those that a few Gothamites still walk; these streets he knows better, but he doesn’t go much faster than a normal walk – he debates, for a moment, whether it would be easier to carry Damian on his side, but then discards the thought; not because it isn’t viable, but because Damian wouldn’t agree to it if he was dying, let alone just for a few fractures. </p><p>“So, I was thinking,” Dick says to fill the silence as he steadily moves towards Wayne Tower, a needle pointing north, “we tell B that my stakeout was a bust–” not a lie, technically, “–and that when you called me I asked you to come over and we’d watch movies in the penthouse for the night.”</p><p>“...what?”</p><p>“I mean, I’m pretty sure there’s a couple changes of clothes up there for us both– I haven’t quite figured out how I’m gonna explain away the call, except maybe I was comming to tell him that you’d come over because you’d forgotten to tell Alfred, and at that exact moment you had your accident. Now, safest bet is saying you did something that doesn’t leave debris, like falling down the stairs–”</p><p>“–I would never fall down the stairs,” Damian sniffs, a little more life in his voice. “I’m far too agile.”</p><p>“...right. Okay, we’ll work on that part. But, needless to say, we were at the penthouse the whole night until you hurt your foot, at which point I drove you to hospital–”</p><p>“He’ll check,” Damian says quietly. “He’s the world’s greatest detective, he’ll look at phone records and security cameras and timestamps–”</p><p>“Course he will,” Dick says, “but there’s only one of him and two of us. And I think we’ve got a several hours head start, considering we’ll probably be waiting in the hospital for a while. I think in that time we can move things around a bit until they work for us; Oracle might even help, if I ask her the right way.”</p><p>When Damian next speaks, Dick can hear the disbelief – the <em>hope – </em>in his voice. “You’d do that? You’d lie to him… for me? Even though it was my fault?”</p><p>“Hey, he might be Batman,” Dick says around the lump in his throat, and tells himself it’s because of Wayne Tower rising up out of the fog like a golden promise, and not the way Damian rests his forehead on Dick's shoulder, “but you’re my Robin.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If there's any mistakes, please do let me know - I've been staring at this thing so long that I can't entirely see it anymore, if you know what I mean, and I have no beta. Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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